Eldritch, Minecraft meets classic RPG

Linux advocate, born in Liverpool, grew up in Cork City Ireland and currently living in Corvallis, Oregon. I love all things Linux, my favorite distro being Ubuntu followed closely by Kubuntu and Linux Mint (Cinnamon and KDE). As far as I'm concerned Linux is the future of gaming. Lets make the world as open and transparent as we can!

Eldritch was released on Steam on Oct 21, 2013 by Minor Key Games. This is an interesting mix of Minecraft meets old school text based RPG, with a touch of Lovecraftian action thrown into the mix. The retro 8 bit look is all the rage at the moment it seems and Eldritch is no exception. It has that classic feel to it when it starts, and you find yourself in a library full of sparkling, magical books. Very old school D&D with a classic RPG gaming feel to it.

Gameplay

Eldritch is an immersive first person sim that lets you explore and interact with its world solving puzzles and working your way to freedom. It’s controller friendly and supports Xbox 360 and compatible controllers, so I don’t imagine it will have any issues with the Steam controller once it has been released. You can customize your appearance by interacting with a mirror in the starting area, that’s a nice touch and I wasn’t expecting it when I first entered the game, given that it is an old school 8 bit style game. You can interact with objects like certain library books by hitting the “F” key after you’ve walked up to them. The goal of the game is to find your way out of the library to freedom and while doing so you get to explore strange worlds, invoke mystical powers and unearth ancient secrets to help you find your way through the game. You’re not going to run out of dungeons to explore for awhile and exploring the various dungeons is really a lot of fun, and for me brought back memories of some the old Amiga and Atari ST games. Eldritch really captures the atmosphere of the early RPG games and that is what I love about it. In the style of Minecraft you can store your goodies in your own chest which comes in handy the further you get into the game. You really could spend hours working your way through levels, unlocking shortcuts, sneaking, fighting a variety of foul creatures, avoiding certain death from hideous traps, and exploring the extremely atmospheric dungeons. And the best part of Eldritch is that the levels are randomly generated to provide fresh challenges and opportunities every time you play.

Graphics

As mentioned above, Eldritch is in the classic 8 bit style and the graphics are just that. It looks great for what it is and the visuals suit the atmosphere and game play perfectly.

Sound

The sound like the graphics is for the most part in the old 8 bit style and again, this really helps to bring the game to life by creating a perfect atmosphere.

Overall

I really liked Eldritch, in fact I’m still playing it and probably will be for sometime to come. I love the game play and the atmosphere suits the story line so well, it will keep you busy for a long time. This game is definitely worth checking out and adding to your library of Steam games.